Frederick DouglassVerified

Douglass's searing firsthand account exposes slavery's brutality with unsparing clarity while demonstrating how he claimed his own intellectual and physical liberation through sheer will. His voice—intelligent, angry, and lyrical—makes this essential reading that transcends history to speak directly to contemporary struggles for dignity.

The second of Frederick Douglass's three autobiographies, published in 1855. It tells in more detail how he went from slavery in Maryland to freedom and then became an abolitionist. This edition includes an introduction by James McCune Smith.